Friday, December 30, 2016

A Naughty New Year Event with Naima Simone

Naima Simone is the author of sizzling contemporary romance and romantic suspense featuring hot alpha men and kick-ass heroines who experience the first bites of desire, the dizzying heights of passion, and the tender, healing heat of love.

She is wife to Superman, or his non-Kryptonian, less bullet proof equivalent, and mother to the most awesome kids ever. They all live in perfect, sometimes domestically-challenged bliss in the southern United States.

Happy New Year, everyone! A big shout-out and jazz kick to Dani for having me here at Ramblings From This Chick as part of the Naughty New Year’s Event! Okay, I’m throwing in some jazz hands, too, just because. =) I love New Year’s because it means new beginnings and possibilities. It’s like one big do-over, and who doesn’t appreciate that? So when I started thinking about the scene I wanted to share, I was like, why not write something new? I mean, it had nothing to do with the fact that none of my books contain a New Year’s scene. Totally a coincidence…*cough* LOL! So anyhoo, I imagined new beginnings for a woman who seriously desires leaving old memories—and an asshat of a boyfriend—in the old year. And the man who can offer her all kinds of naughty in the new…

Ren Taylor caught the eye of the bartender and held up his beer bottle, signaling for another. The guy nodded, even as he filled several other orders for the customers bellied up to the bar. Donovan’s was wall-to-wall packed with people celebrating the looming New Year. The noise in the neighborhood bar had reached ear-splitting about twenty minutes ago, and was fast zooming in on cochlear transplant territory. Why he’d thought venturing out of his big, people-free, quiet apartment to get a drink at the bar when he had two six-packs chilling in his refrigerator was an inspired idea, he didn’t have a clue. The fumes from the chemicals in his dark room must’ve made him high. His brother, Nate, had been harping on him for years about joining the 21st century and going digital instead of still developing film the old-fashioned way. Now, he was beginning to see the merit in his annoying older brother’s argument.

If he were balls-to-the-wall honest, it’d been the silence that had driven him from his home. Usually, New Year’s Eve would find him surrounded by the shouting, laughter, and even arguing that came with family. But with his parents’ deaths in a violent carjacking on their way home from the Taylors’ last New Year’s gathering, their family had imploded. It seemed as if Jack and Mei Taylor had been the adhesive bonding all of them together, and when they’d died, that glue had disintegrated. And a year later, his younger brother was off the grid somewhere in their mother’s native Japan, and Nate was probably either ball’s deep in a woman or holed up in his own lonely New York apartment, pounding out a chapter in one of his suspense novels. And Ren, abandoning New York for the other side of the country—literally—sat in a Seattle bar, knocking back a beer, and trying to convince himself that drowning in alcohol was far preferable to drowning in memories and pain.

“Hey, babe. Sorry I’m late. Forgive me?”

Ren didn’t look up from his beer even as his dick did a little “Hey, how you doin’?” at the sound of that sultry, 800-sex operator voice. Calm down, he ordered his cock. Still, he couldn’t help the flicker of envy that flashed in his chest for the lucky “babe.” A woman with a voice like that could be forgiven anything as long as she kept talking…

A hand stroked down his arm seconds before slim, elegant fingers closed around his wrist. Surprised, he jerked his head up and met the most beautiful, soulful chocolate eyes he’d ever seen. Dark, thick lashes that he suspected hadn’t been store bought momentarily lowered, hiding that arresting gaze from him. He fisted his beer bottle, barely suppressing the urge to demand she give him her eyes again—look at him again.

Exhaling a rough breath, he lifted the beer to his lips and swallowed a healthy amount of the alcohol. She didn’t release him, and for some crazy reason that he couldn’t quite grasp, he didn’t order her to do it either.

The woman smiled, and he almost choked on the gulp of beer. Fuck. If her eyes were gorgeous, that lush, carnal mouth turned up in a hot and heavy invitation defied description. Propping an elbow on the bar, he studied her, not bothering to hide the speculation and need racing through him like a reenactment of Fast and Furious.

What the hell? Lust wasn’t a stranger to him. Women seemed to find him—with the blending of his mother’s Japanese and his father’s European heritage—attractive, so sex came easily. Maybe a little too easily. But this chokehold of need that strangled him so his voice sounded like it’d been serrated with a rusty butter knife? Never.

“Excuse me?” he rasped.

“Please play along,” she murmured, her smile widening. Yet even as the sensual promise deepened, her gaze mirrored the plea and desperation in her words. “I know how I look right now. Like a crazy woman who needs a restraining order slapped against her. But please, if there’s even an ounce of Prince Charming in you, I’m in desperate need of a glass slipper and rescuing.”

Ren blinked. O-kay. “That was one helluva speech. And doesn’t move the decimal on the crazy factor over one-tenth,” he drawled. “I think we’re both going to need alcohol for this conversation.” As the bartender approached him with his newly opened beer bottle, he arched an eyebrow. “What’re you drinking?”

“Whatever you’re having.”

And that quick she became even hotter. A woman down-to-earth enough to drink straight from the bottle? Yeah, damn hot.

As if her lovely gaze, crimson-painted lips and one-of-the-boys drinking preferences weren’t overkill, a riot of dark, wild curls brushed her shoulders and framed a heart-shaped, stunning face. Not beautiful, he noted with a last ditch effort at objectivity. At least not in the way his modeling agency clients would consider. Her mouth was a shade too wide, too full. Her nose too wide, her cheekbones too sharp and defined for classic beauty. But all those characteristics added up to a striking, unique face that exceeded an executive’s idea of loveliness. This woman would make a man stop and stare, even as he imagined what those lips would look like parted on a feral scream of pleasure. Or whether those eyes would glaze over as she shook in orgasm or reflect back a deep, dark fire that he would gladly burn in.

Whether her siren’s body of curves and dips could take the hard, dirty fucking it seemed created for.

Moments later, the bartender set another beer in front of her, and Ren waited until she took her first sip, and pretended images of her mouth pursed over his cock hadn’t suckerpunched him.

“So, talk, princess. Why do you need rescuing?” he asked.

Relief flooded her expression, and for a moment, she closed her eyes before reopening them and meeting his gaze. “Thanks,” she whispered. “I hate ambushing you. But every man over here is either with someone, drunk as hell or looks like their apartment might have body parts stashed in a refrigerator.”

He snorted. “Don’t thank me yet,” he cautioned, cocking his head to the side. “I haven’t done anything.”

This time her smile came more naturally, and it was as gorgeous as the don’t-you-wanna-fuck-me version. She angled her body closer to him until she stood between the vee of his spread legs, her generous breasts almost grazing his chest. The feminine swell of her hips brushed his inner thighs, and he trapped a groan behind his clenched teeth. Jesus H. Christ, this woman was going to have him barred from Donovan’s after he lifted her ass to the bar and found out for himself if that light, floral scent on her coffee-and-cream skin was heavier and stronger between her thighs.

“Look over my shoulder,” she instructed as he forced his attention away from thoughts of making her come screaming on his tongue and on her words. “The table at your two o’clock, near the door. The guy with the Justin Bieber haircut and plaid jacket sitting with the blonde.”

Raising his beer to his lips once more, he casually scanned the packed bar, following her directions. Seconds later, he spotted the man and woman she’d described. He looked like all the other twenty-something preppies who’d crowded into Donovan’s tonight, and the slim blonde cozied up to him appeared two sheets to the wind. Again, same as all the others.

“What about them?” he questioned, returning his regard to her upturned face. And he didn’t miss the flash of hurt and anger that passed over her features.

“That’s my ex and the girl he cheated on me with. Since this isn’t the kind of place he usually patronizes, I can only assume he overheard me telling a co-worker that I planned on coming here tonight,” she explained, her voice carefully even.

“So he brought his side-piece where he knew you’d be to rub your face in the fact that he’s a cheating douche?” he growled, shooting another glare in the asshole’s direction. As if sensing Ren’s stare, the bastard glanced up. A smirk cocked up one corner of the Bieber wanna-be’s mouth. Schooling his features and allowing none of the disgust and anger barreling through him on her—hell, he only knew her as “princess”—behalf, Ren arched an eyebrow and lowered his head to her tangle of curls. The silken strands tickled his skin, and he couldn’t help rubbing his cheek against the thick spirals. “I’m in,” he rumbled in her ear, stroking his free hand down her spine, and stopping a bare inch above the curve of her ass.

The douche’s smirk dropped, replaced by a blistering scowl. Ren hid his satisfied smile in her hair.

“I believe we have his attention, princess” he murmured, lifting his head and smiling down at her. She blinked, her lips parting. Then she shook her head, downing a swallow of beer. “He can’t take his eyes off you. Want to make him sorry he ever walked his loafer-wearing ass in here tonight?”

“How’d you know—” Again, she shook her head. “Never mind. He totally wears loafers. With the tassels, too. And yes. I want to make him sorry.”

He set the beer bottle on the bar and gripped her waist while his other hand retraced its path up her back, not stopping until his fingers tunneled through her thick, wild hair. Edging forward, he pulled her closer, farther into the cradle of his thighs until she couldn’t miss the hard length of his cock. Hard because of her.

Her sharp intake of breath didn’t escape him. Neither did the slight widening of her eyes before her lashes fluttered, and her gaze darkened.

“How bad did he hurt you?” he murmured, lowering his head until her soft, alcohol-laced breath brushed his mouth. “What did he take from you?”

“My heart. My pride. A year and half of giving myself freely and getting nothing but criticism, selfishness and hurt in return. Worst, I stood for it. I let him strip away everything that was me, and now I don’t know where to begin to find myself again,” she confessed on a pain-filled, rushed deluge of words. Surprise and what he interpreted as horror flickered over her face, and he had to wonder if she’d even meant to say all of that. His guess would be an emphatic “hell no.”

When her gaze dropped, he tightened his grip on her hair and tilted her head back so she had no choice but to meet his eyes, her asshole ex forgotten for the moment.

“I’m going to kiss you. Not just kiss you. I’m going to fuck your mouth with mine,” he warned, allowing the lust coursing through him to deepen his voice to a low, rough growl. A shudder rippled through her, and the powerful surge of satisfaction at the reaction had him crowding closer until he was damn near wrapped around her smaller body. “I’m going to lick you, suck on you, find out for myself if you taste is good as the scent that has been driving me fucking wild since you stepped to me. While I’m taking your mouth, princess, I’ll be imagining how those pretty, soft lips would feel spreading for my dick as sweetly as you’re going to do for my tongue.”

“I—” she gasped. Swallowed hard. Tried again. “I—”

“You’re going to let me,” he supplied softly. “And do you know why?”

She mutely shook her head.

“Not because that asshole is watching. Not to make him jealous. Because make no mistake, he’s going to be jealous. You’re going to let me because you need it. You want it. Just as damn bad as I do. See, I don’t give a rat’s ass about him. I want you because you’re walking, breathing sex. Because you stroll into a room and any man with a dick goes hard and would give his left nut to just touch your gorgeous skin, look into your pretty eyes and press against this body.” He raked his gaze over her. “A body that should be registered as an illegal weapon. That’s why I’m going to kiss you. Any questions?”

“No,” she breathed, just as the lights in the bar flickered on and off, and the crowd started yelling.

“Ten,” they shouted. “Nine. Eight. Seven…”

The countdown continued, and he tangled his fingers tighter in her hair. His breath mated with hers seconds before he covered her mouth with his.

Damn.

It was like diving into a bubbling vat of unadulterated, Grade A pleasure and need. With a hungry groan, he thrust his tongue between her lips, tasting, savoring, taking. God, she was sweet. Unlike anything he’d ever sampled. The sharp tang of beer, the fruity zest of candy that she might’ve been sucking on before approaching him. And underneath? Underneath lay the earthy, wild flavor that saturated the scent of her skin. The scent that he instinctively knew was her.

She whimpered, and he swallowed the greedy sound, curling his tongue around hers and sucking, demanding she surrender another. Angling his head, he dove deeper, forced her mouth to open wider, take more of him, give him more of herself. Hold nothing back. Screw New Year’s. Screw revenge. Screw the Bieb. She filled him, consumed his senses. Beat back the loneliness.

And he wanted more.

***

Whew. *fanning myself* Makes me want to cop a squat at the nearest neighborhood dive bar on New Year’s Eve and accost a hottie! LOL! So, I’m giving away a $5 Amazon gift card and an eBook copy of any book in my latest erotic romance series, Lick! Just tell me who—real or fiction—you’d like to share a sizzling kiss with to ring in the New Year!

It’s been five years since I’ve seen her.

Five years since Gabriella James damn near destroyed me with her betrayal, sending me to hell in a cage.

I’ve crawled free, escaped the mob, opened a night club, and continue to battle my demons through underground fighting and sex. But now Gabriella’s back, begging for absolution, wanting my forgiveness. All I want is what she’s denied me for all these years—her body.